Caratoes, a Hong Kong-based artist, draws inspiration from global sources ranging from the Belgian church ornamentation of her youth to anime stylings. She is known for monochromatic figures that are at once fractured and flowing.

On SODO Track, her surrealist figure neighbors artist Paola Delfin’s similarly monochromatic, fragmented, and feminine subject. Conceived in tandem, both artworks echo a theme of internal transformation and movement. Caratoes’ work is driven by the separation of the mental and the physical during creative exploration. Behind her subject’s physical profile and gaze is the mind’s abstracted figurine of a golden mermaid, situated in the palm of an outstretched hand—as if offered up to the sea.